Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 7:50 am Post subject:

I'M AWESOME!!!

Now if I could just get a job I'd be on the road to greatness._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:48 am Post subject:

fuck you very much I didn't need that_________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 9:03 am Post subject:

Touching on Privacy and cyberbullying, an update to the Tyler Clementi case (the guy whose roommate videotaped him having sex with a guy via web cam and put it on the internet - excerpt only as the rest of the article is about cyberbullying):

On Sept. 19, a Twitter account bearing the first name of his roommate, Dharun Ravi, 18, said: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

Molly is Molly Wei, 18, another Rutgers freshman. Like Ravi, she now is charged with invading Clementi's privacy. Collecting or viewing sexual images without a person's consent is a crime.

Under New Jersey privacy laws, transmitting images of nudity or sexual contact without the person's consent is a crime that carries a maximum prison term of five years.

Attorneys for Ravi and Wei did not return calls.

"I don't know how those two folks are going to sleep at night," Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, "knowing that they contributed to driving that young man to that alternative."

Ravi also is accused of trying to webcast a second encounter involving Clementi on Tuesday, the day before his suicide.

Hate crime punishment is also being investigated. If you are not familiar with the case, there is a full overview of the situation an the beginning of the article._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 9:48 am Post subject:

I have an android phone and the job thing is fucking sensitive, okay? Not cool.

Gah I don't have any other articles handy about privacy to change the subject. Maybe something will go up tomorrow._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

if I had gone iPhone instead of android, i would totally have immediately hacked my phone to get at the location/timestamp data and made a heat map of my movements overlaid on google maps, solely for my own curiosity.

since I didn't have an iPhone, I suppose i'll just have to suffice with, say, having a phone that isn't stalking me because its maker has a controlling and paternalistic idiot attitude towards its customers.

That was only a matter of time. The logical reason that came out explaining why iOS makes the log of location data - to quickly zero in on an area of the map so you can start fiddling while the GPS lock is acquired - made too much sense for Android not to gather the same data._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 9:00 pm Post subject:

Hey now, the whole article is interesting for showing specific differences. Excerpt from the link from wheels:

Quote:

Eriksson suspected that his Android device collected similar information. "Following the latest internet outrage to the revelation that iPhone has a cache for its location service, I decided to have look what my Android device caches for the same function," he wrote in a note on GitHub. He put together an application similar to Warden's based on open source cache parsing code, which extracts data from "cache.cell" and "cache.wifi" and displays it on a map.

Like iOS, Android stores these databases in an area that is only accessible by root. To access the caches, an Android device needs to be "rooted," which removes most of the system's security features. Unlike iOS, though, Android phones aren't typically synced with a computer, so the files would need to be extracted from a rooted device directly. This distinction makes the data harder to access for the average user, but easy enough for an experienced hacker or forensic expert.

Another important difference, according to developer Mike Castelman, is that Android keeps less data overall than iOS devices. "The main difference that I can see is that Android seems to have a cache versus iOS's log," Castleman, who contributed some code improvements to Eriksson's tool, told Ars. That is, Android appears to limit the caches to 50 entries for cell tower triangulation and 200 entries for WiFi basestation location. iOS's consolidated.db, on the other hand, seems to keep a running tally of data since iOS is first installed and activated on a device. iOS will also keep multiple records of the same tower or basestation, while Android only keeps a single record.

Regardless of those differences, however, the data could be used in the same way. For instance, said Castleman, "if you were arrested or something shortly after a crime was committed, either device would contain evidence that could be used against you."

The data in these caches is used when GPS data isn't available, or to more quickly narrow down a location while GPS services are being polled (known as "assisted" or aGPS). Apple and Google both collect some of this data to build and maintain databases of known cell tower and WiFi basestation locations. Both companies previously used similar data from Skyhook, but both recently moved to building and using their own databases (presumably for cost and/or performance reasons).

And Google getting a hold of your information isn't so great either. More about both in the WSJ article:

Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.
Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.
Google declined to comment on the findings.

There are ways for users to block the transmission of location information by Android devices and iPhones-although doing solimits important smartphone functions such as maps. WSJ's Jen Valentino explains.

Until last year, Google was collecting similar Wi-Fi data with its fleet of StreetView cars that map and photograph streets world-wide. The company shut down its StreetView Wi-Fi collection last year after it inadvertently collected e-mail addresses, passwords and other personal information from Wi-Fi networks. The data that Mr. Kamkar observed being transmitted on Android phones didn't include such personal information.

Apple, meanwhile, says it "intermittently" collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours, according to a letter the company sent to U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) last year. Apple didn't respond to requests for comment.
The Google and Apple developments follow the Journal's findings last year that some of the most popular smartphone apps use location data and other personal information even more aggressively than this—in some cases sharing it with third-party companies without the user's consent or knowledge.
Apple this week separately has come under fire after researchers found that iPhones store unencrypted databases containing location information sometimes stretching back several months.
Google and Apple, the No. 1 and No.3 U.S. smartphone platforms respectively according to comScore Inc., previously have disclosed that they use location data, in part, to build giant databases of Internet WI-Fi hotspots. That data can be used to pinpoint the location of people using Wi-Fi connections.

Cellphones have many reasons to collect location information, which helps provide useful services like local-business lookups and social-networking features. Some location data can also help cellphone networks more efficiently route calls.
Google also has said it uses some of the data to build accurate traffic maps. A cellphone's location data can provide details about, for instance, how fast traffic is moving along a stretch of highway.
The widespread collection of location information is the latest frontier in the booming market for personal data. Until recently, most data about people's behavior has been collected from personal computers: That data generally can be tied to a city or a zip code, but it is tough to be more precise. The rise of Internet-enabled cellphones, however, allows the collection of user data tied with much more precision to specific locations.
This new form of tracking is raising questions from government officials and privacy advocates. On Wednesday, Rep. Markey sent a follow-up letter to Apple asking why the company is storing customer-location data on its phones.
"Apple needs to safeguard the personal location information of its users to ensure that an iPhone doesn't become an iTrack," Rep. Markey said in a statement.
Google previously has said that the Wi-Fi data it collects is anonymous and that it deletes the start and end points of every trip that it uses in its traffic maps. However, the data, provided to the Journal exclusively by Mr. Kamkar, contained a unique identifier tied to an individual's phone.
Mr. Kamkar, 25 years old, has a controversial past. In 2005, when he was 19, he created a computer worm that caused MySpace to crash. He pled guilty to a felony charge of computer hacking in Los Angeles Superior Court, and agreed to not use a computer for three years. Since 2008, he has been doing independent computer security research and consulting. Last year, he developed the "evercookie"—a type of tracking file that is difficult to be removed from computers—as a way to highlight the privacy vulnerabilities in Web-browsing software.
The Journal hired an independent consultant, Ashkan Soltani, to review Mr. Kamkar's findings regarding the Android device and its use of location data. Mr. Soltani confirmed Mr. Kamkar's conclusions.
Transmission of location data raises questions about who has access to what could be sensitive information about location and movement of a phone user.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey are investigating whether smartphone applications illegally obtained or transmitted information such as location without proper disclosures, the Journal reported in April, citing people familiar with the matter.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said the office "had concerns" about using cellphones to collect Wi-Fi data and has expressed those concerns to Google. "The whole issue of the tracking capabilities of new mobile devices raises significant privacy issues," she said.
The business of collecting location information began in 2003, when Boston-based Skyhook Inc. launched and began the practice of "wardriving"—cruising around in cars to collect information about Wi-Fi hotspots. Comparing the names and signal strengths of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots against a database allows for a cellphone's location to be determined within 100 feet, in many cases, Skyhook says.
"For the first four or five years, people thought we were nuts," said Ted Morgan, Skyhook's founder and CEO. "We invented this whole concept of driving around and scanning for Wi-Fi and tuning these algorithms."
In 2007, Google began building its own Wi-Fi database, using the StreetView cars. Last year, Apple switched from using Skyhook and began creating its own database of Wi-Fi points for use on its newest phones, although it still uses Skyhook data for older phones and Macintosh computers.
Skyhook's Mr. Morgan says the company attempts to protect users' privacy by collecting data via cellphone only when a person requests location from its servers—for instance when they are actively looking at a map. Each time a user requests location, the information is encrypted and gathered without any identifying user numbers, Mr. Morgan says. That means Skyhook can't follow a person from one location to the next, he says.

Google seems to be taking a different approach, to judge from the data captured by Mr. Kamkar. Its location data appears to be transmitted regardless of whether an app is running, and is tied to the phone's unique identifier.
In its letter to Congress last year, Apple said that it only collects location data from people who use apps that require location. It doesn't specify how often a person must use the app for intermittent collection to occur.
Apple also said in the letter that it collects Wi-Fi and GPS information when the phone is searching for a cellular connection. Apple said the data it transmits about location aren't associated with a unique device identifier, except for data related to its mobile advertising network
Apple gathers the data to help build a "database with known location information," the letter says. "This information is batched and then encrypted and transmitted to Apple over a Wi-Fi Internet connection every twelve hours (or later if the device does not have Wi-Fi Internet access at that time)," the company wrote in the July letter to Congress.
The letter, which is available on Rep. Markey's website, became newsworthy this week in light of findings from two researchers who uncovered a file on iPhones that keeps a record of where the phone has been and when it was there. The file is unencrypted and stored by default.
The discovery of this location file touched off a furor among iPhone owners who could see for the first time a trove of location data about themselves stored on their phones. The researchers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, said that they had no evidence that the file was being transmitted to Apple.

_________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

First off, what we need to realize is that the same kind of data is being collected since, well ever.

The main difference here is that the new app collect unencrypted data on your cell instead of collecting it server side (that it's being encrypted or not is another issue). So instead of having FSB/NSA/Goaunbu etc.., any private dick with basic english skill and google access will be now able to track where you do groceries.

That the problematic file was so far hidden came to light because of OS change doesn't prevent the fact there is little or no way one can use a smartphone, whatever the kind, without leaving prints.

And android is having the same issue anyway...To me, it's odd to think that is an issue now for all the Winston Smith around when nobody ever cared about it before.

Every day I feel better about not having an Apple product, or Facebooking.

Feel even better:

1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?

By Joel Johnson February 28, 2011 | 12:00 pm | Wired March 2011

Quote:

It’s hard not to look at the nets. Every building is skirted in them. They drape every precipice, steel poles jutting out 20 feet above the sidewalk, loosely tangled like volleyball nets in winter.

The nets went up in May, after the 11th jumper in less than a year died here. They carried a message: You can throw yourself off any building you like, as long as it isn’t one of these. And they seem to have worked. Since they were installed, the suicide rate has slowed to a trickle.

My tour guides don’t mention the nets until I do. Not to avoid the topic, I don’t think—the suicides are the reason I am at a Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, a bustling industrial city in southern China—but simply because they are so prevalent. Foxconn, the single largest private employer in mainland China, manufactures many of the products—motherboards, camera components, MP3 players—that make up the world’s $150 billion consumer-electronics industry. Foxconn’s output accounts for nearly 40 percent of that revenue. Altogether, the company employs about a million people, nearly half of whom work at the 20-year-old Shenzhen plant. But until two summers ago, most Americans had never heard of Foxconn.

That all changed with the suicides. There had been a few since 2007. Then a spate of nine between March and May 2010—all jumpers. There were also suicides at other Foxconn plants in China. Although the company disputes some cases, evidence gathered from news reports and other sources indicates that 17 Foxconn workers have killed themselves in the past half decade. What had seemed to be a series of isolated incidents was becoming an appalling trend. When one jumper left a note explaining that he committed suicide to provide for his family, the program of remuneration for the families of jumpers was canceled. Some saw the Foxconn suicides as a damning consequence of our global hunger for low-cost electronics. Reports from inside the factories warned of “sweatshop” conditions; old allegations of forced overtime burbled back to life. Foxconn and its partners—notably Apple—found themselves defending factory conditions while struggling to explain the deaths. “Suicides in China Prompt Damage Control,” blared The New York Times.

I seem to be witnessing some of those damage-control efforts on this still-warm fall day as two Foxconn executives—along with a liaison from Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm hired to deal with the post-suicide outcry—lead me through the facility. I have spent much of my career blogging about gadgets on sites like Boing Boing Gadgets and Gizmodo, reviewing and often praising many of the products that were made right here at Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory. I ignored the first Foxconn suicides as sad but statistically inevitable. But as the number of jumpers approached double digits, latent self-reproach began to boil over. Out of a million people, 17 suicides isn’t much—indeed, American college students kill themselves at four times that rate. Still, after years of writing what is (at best) buyers’ guidance and (at worst) marching hymns for an army of consumers, I was burdened by what felt like an outsize provision of guilt—an existential buyer’s remorse for civilization itself. I am here because I want to know: Did my iPhone kill 17 people?

My hosts are eager to help me answer that question in the negative by pointing out how pleasant life in the factory can be. They are quick with the college analogies: The canteens and mess halls are “like a college food court.” The living quarters, where up to eight workers share rooms about the size of a two-car garage, are “like college dorms.” The avenues and boulevards in the less industrial parts of the campus are “like malls.”

For all their defensiveness, my guides are not far off the mark. The avenues certainly look more like a college campus than the dingy design-by-Communism concrete canyons I half expected to find. Sure, everything on the Foxconn campus is a bit shabby—errant woody saplings creep out of sidewalk cracks, and the signage is sometimes rusty or faded—more community college than Ivy League, perhaps. But it’s generally clean. Workers stroll the sidewalks chatting and laughing, smoking together under trees, as amiable as any group of factory workers in the first world.

But “college campus” doesn’t quite capture the vastness of the place. It’s more like a nation-state, a gated complex covering just over a square mile, separated from the rest of Shenzhen’s buildings by chain link and concrete. It houses one of the largest industrial kitchens in Asia—perhaps the world. Shenzhen itself was developed over the past three decades as one of party leader Deng Xiaoping’s Special Economic Zones—a kind of capitalist hot spot. The experiment was a rousing success. Millions of workers, gambling that low but dependable wages would be more readily found in Shenzhen, migrated from the poor, rural western provinces, packing into the tenement complexes that soon riddled the city. Factory work offered a chance to change their lives and the lives of their families back home, but it offered little in the way of security. Many companies did not supply housing, leaving workers to find shelter in dodgy slums or encouraging them to sleep on the assembly line. When they did provide lodging, it was typically a dorm room crammed with bunk beds.

According to company lore, Foxconn founder Terry Gou was determined to do things differently. So when the firm built its Longhua factory in Shenzhen, it included onsite dormitories—good ones, designed to be better than what workers could afford on their own. Terry Gou built on-campus housing, I am told, because Terry Gou cared about the welfare of his employees.

Up went a factory, up went a dorm. Up went an assembly line, up went a cafeteria. While other companies’ workers fended for themselves or slept under the tables they worked at, Gou’s employees were well fed, safe from the petty crime of a growing metropolis, and surrounded by peers and advocates.

It rings as unalloyed munificence—until a man puts his foot on the edge of a roof, looks across the campus full of trees and swimming pools and coffee shops, and steps off into nothing.

and people laughed at my primitive 10-pad phone! at least it is too stupid to be plotting against me!

Smartphone is a one-way street. First you don't own one and don't think you need one. Then you get one and understand why you can't live without.

I, for one, welcome my new robot cellphone overlords.

It's the pocket exception or pocket rule. The more useful things something does will always increase it's value - so long as it fits in your pocket. This is where the ipad fails._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake